1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems to facilitate reporting results of a defect inspection. In particular, the present invention relate to such methods and system which utilize a portable computer to facilitate the reporting.
2. Background Art
Automobiles, kitchen appliances, and other products include multiple body portions. The body portions are the outwardly visible portions of the product. For example, the multiple body portions of a vehicle include a hood, a roof, a truck, a front quarter panel, a rear corner panel, and a door.
The appearance of the product is affected by the appearance of the body portions. Defects can negatively affect the appearance. Common defects include foreign contaminant defects, paint defects, rust defects, weld defects, structural defects, such as dents and scratches, and others. The customer prefers the product to be defect free. Accordingly, there exists a need to inspect the multiple body portions for defects.
In the past, the body portions were inspected in a paper reporting process. The paper reporting process generally comprised inspecting each body portion and recording defects on a piece of paper. The inspector files the paper indicating the defects in a filing cabinet for later use. When needed, the inspector retrieves the defect papers to analyze the manufacturing process.
The appearance of the body portions is critical to customers satisfaction. The paper reporting process can makes analysis of the body portions a time consumer process. Because the defect data is recorded on a piece of paper, the inspector must manually perform a number of time consuming tasks to make use of the manually recorded defect data. Accordingly, there exists a need to report defects in a less time consuming manner.